Obsidian Field Notes: a leadership website for someone who learnt the work on the night shift

The home page opens with a thin row across the top. On the left, in Instrument Serif, it reads Field notes / Sebastian Mercier. On the right, in small straw-coloured type, sit his role and Canada. Below, the wide left column carries Dispatch 01 / Canada, the essay's topic, date and a five-minute reading time, then the largest type on the site, his first essay's title: Self-checkout moves the work instead of removing it. A two-sentence standfirst and a link reading Read this dispatch complete the column.

A nominating committee chair therefore meets a contestable claim about store automation, with a missed saving of C$2.5 million behind it, before learning his job title.

Behind a hairline rule on the right, the portrait sits above a caption like a reporter's note. It gives his name, Canada and the languages he lists, French and English, in that order. It then states what he is open to, board appointments, advisory roles and speaking invitations, but not executive opportunities, and ends with a contact link. For a CHRO whose third essay concerns English requirements in Quebec postings, that language line is evidence. On a phone the portrait shrinks to sit beside the caption.

A scrolling rail of career chapters appears under the dispatch only when a member adds short career entries. Sebastian's record lives on the Career page, so his home page moves straight to Further reading, with dispatches 02 and 03: Show the union your labour-cost model before the first offer, and Stop asking Quebec managers for English the job does not use.

A quotation headed A leadership conviction follows, saying that a people plan is finished only when he can say who will do the work it moves, at what hour and in which language. Three figures sit under it: 9,600 colleagues year-round, C$352 million of compensation and benefits expense, and 77% of store-manager appointments filled from within. His thesis, introduction and four proof points follow, then a record band with his not-for-profit directorship, his formation and a remark from the chair of Grangemont's compensation committee.

The Career page is headed Field notes from an executive career. Each of his six appointments runs in two columns. A slightly lighter navy panel on the left holds the dates and the geography: Laval for the night shift, Saint-Hyacinthe for the plant, four plants across two provinces, 212 stores across Canada, then 168 stores with a head office in Guelph. The right column gives title, scale, reporting line, team, payroll, mandate, outcomes and the reason for each move.

Board Readiness is headed The boardroom territory I know. His contribution sits between two rules; a panel on the left shows the compensation committee he could chair after a full cycle and his twenty-two available days. The wider column carries three judgement examples: adding the cost of a strike to a bargaining mandate, removing a measure that self-checkout would have flattered, and leaving the room when his own employer was the sponsor.

Obsidian sets warm cream text on a deep blue-black ground, with a lighter navy for panels, cool grey for secondary lines and a pale straw accent for datelines, labels and links. Headlines are in Instrument Serif, a single-weight display face that gives an essay title weight without bulk. Running text and the record pages use Sora, a geometric sans-serif that keeps hourly wages and store counts legible at small sizes.

The palette suits Sebastian's readers: board chairs and search partners in Toronto and Montreal, union-literate HR peers and operators who start work before sunrise. The straw accent quietly recalls the feed and seed his company sells.

Obsidian Field Notes works for leaders whose views were formed on a site, a shift or a route rather than in a head office: operations chiefs in distribution and food manufacturing, HR and safety leaders in unionised businesses, executives of regional retailers and co-operatives. Like every design in the collection, it suits all ten leadership roles. It rewards a first essay with a clear claim and a career record that states where each employer actually worked.